212 SCIENCE PROGRESS. 



Ramsay and Acton (17), as well as by Rimbach (18), are 

 very interesting as examples of various methods of attacking 

 this problem, and which give fair results, but they can 

 hardly be said to have given results possessing greater 

 accuracy than those of Abrahall (19). 



Of all the elements of which the atomic weights are still 

 in doubt, and of which the determinations are very unsatis- 

 factory, by far the most interesting is undoubtedly tellurium. 

 According to the periodic classification of the elements it 

 ought, as is well known, to have an atomic weight less than 

 that of iodine, but all the most satisfactory determinations 

 are irreconcilable with this, and make the atomic weight 

 notably higher than that of iodine. The experiments made 

 in recent years both by Brauner (20) and by Wills (21) 

 agree in this, no matter what method is adopted as long as 

 it is one which gives concordant results. The latest deter- 

 minations, those of Staudenmeier (22) which start from 

 telluric acid, give, according to him, the values 127*6, 

 127*1, and 127*3 f° r three series of experiments in which 

 different ratios were determined. He takes as his standard 

 O = 16 and H = 1*0032. Staudenmeier upholds that tel- 

 lurium is an element in opposition to Brauner who at one 

 time maintained that it was a mixture of true tellurium with 

 a higher homologue, but now concludes that this is very im- 

 probable, and since the discovery of argon suggests that 

 the assumed impurity may be a homologue of argon. 

 Speculations of this nature are strongly to be discouraged 

 and condemned, especially when their basis is nothing 

 more than the assumed abnormality in the periodic ar- 

 rangement of the elements coupled with a very decided 

 want of agreement in the results of an experimenter's own 

 work obtained by different methods. They may afford an 

 easier way out of a difficulty than by working steadily at 

 the causes of such discrepancies, but afford at best but a 

 feeble and undignified cover for one's retreat. 



P.S. — About the middle of last month, and after the 

 above article was written, Thomsen (23) published the 

 results of some new determinations of the densities of 

 oxygen and hydrogen. The oxygen was prepared by 



